Life Among the Pages: Studying, Researching and Teaching through Barbara Czarniawska
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.23.02.26.1Keywords:
Narratives, identity, Auto/biography, Hernadi, social sciencesAbstract
This article offers an autobiographical and reflexive engagement with the work of Barbara Czarniawska, foregrounding the epistemic and pedagogical value of narrative methodologies in contemporary social science research. Drawing on Czarniawska’s theorisation of narrative as both method and object, the contribution explores how auto/biographical writing functions as a space of mediation between life, text, and scholarly identity. Through a personal re-reading structured around Hernadi’s triad of explication, explanation, and exploration, the article reconstructs three formative moments in the author’s academic trajectory as student, doctoral researcher, and lecturer each corresponding to a different mode of engagement with Czarniawska’s thought. Rather than treating biography and autobiography as self-referential or methodologically weak genres, the paper argues that narrative reflexivity constitutes a necessary condition for sensemaking in organizational and social studies. By situating Czarniawska not merely as an object of study but as an active presence within the author’s own narrative practice, the article demonstrates how scholarly identities are performatively constituted through storytelling. In doing so, it challenges positivist assumptions about objectivity and generalisability, reaffirming narrative inquiry as a rigorous and ethically grounded approach to knowledge production. Ultimately, the article positions Czarniawska’s legacy as a living methodological invitation, one that continues to shape how scholars learn, teach, and narrate the social world.
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